Verse of the Day for February 5

He calls it a new commandment, which is odd. Loving one another was already in the law — Leviticus had said love thy neighbour as thyself centuries earlier.

What is new is the standard. Not as thyself. As I have loved you.

And he says it in a room where he has just washed their feet, including the feet of the man who is about to sell him, an hour or so before he is arrested.

So the measure is not an abstraction. They had watched it that evening, in a basin, on the floor.

It is a harder commandment than the old one, and also a clearer one. Loving your neighbour as yourself requires you to work out what you would want. Loving as he loved requires you to remember what he did.

The new standard is higher, but it is also more concrete. You are not guessing at a level.

Ask what he did in the room that night, and do the equivalent for one person this week.